


Fire

by animasevera



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Character Study, Gen, shortfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 18:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8724541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animasevera/pseuds/animasevera
Summary: Lysandra Hawke has always carried a flame somewhere inside her.





	

Sparks dance in her palm, jumping higher and higher until they build into a flame.   
  
Fire has always been a part of Hawke's life. Most people imagined a mage with fire and saw homes in flames, children burning alive. For Lysandra, the tongue that danced in her hand had a different meaning entirely. A fire roared in the hearth of the Hawke home, keeping them all shielded from even the harshest of Fereldan winters. The cooking pot bubbled and steamed, full of enough stew to feed every member of the family, including, miraculously, Carver. For the mages, it was especially important that they stayed well-nourished and rested, to keep their minds in prime condition. Even in the best Circles, no one was kept as well as Malcolm and his daughters. It was true they weren't rich, but they had something no mage in any Circle had - each other.   
  
That was the kindling of the fire in her hands.   
  
It was also fire that burned bright in the forge of the blacksmith who lived down the road. Sometimes, Lys would watch the tall Rivaini woman strike hammer against metal again and again, the orange glow from the nearby oven washing across every line of sinew that marked the map of her life's work on her arms and back. She would then heat the smithery in the forge once more, this time to let it sit and cool. She had forged one of Carver's blades, the one he still carried with him. Every swing carried that mighty heat.   
  
When night fell, the village guards would patrol the dirt roads, yellow lights dancing atop staves of wood. Each house would likewise have a torch, a candle, an oil lamp, a lantern, turning long after the sun had gone down. If they knew they might be seen, highwaymen might think twice before attempting to rob a home or an unwary traveler. Wild animals knew that the light of fires meant the presence of men, and men meant traps, poison, and arrows.   
  
One fire in her life, when it burned, gave off no heat and no light. That fire was the one on which her father's body burned, the rising smoke said to carry his soul up to be with the Maker in the Fade. She was a grown woman when it happened, but this did not keep her from sobbing like a small child. She was hardly able to stand up - fourteen-year-old Carver had to hold her up as she soaked his shirt. Bethany had also been there, her grief a more silent display as she hugged Lysandra from behind.   
  
Bethany didn't even get a pyre. They had to leave her behind, for the vermin and the wild dogs and the Darkspawn to devour. The Blight was on their heels, and would have taken any other one of them if they did not keep moving. Even this, though, did not stop Hawke from turning around and throwing a fireball in the direction of her sister's corpse. By the Maker, if she could not save her sister's life, she would not let anyone else claim her in death. Even now, years later, she had nightmares of demons animating Bethany's lifeless body, first asking, then demanding to know why Lys did not save her. It might have been the closest she had been to being possessed by a demon herself.  
  
She lets the flame die, leaving only a deep blue afterimage in her vision. To know that many desired to take it away from her made its absence that much colder. Above ground, she kept her magic tightly guarded. In Darktown, away from Templar eyes, in the dead of night when the people would sometimes sleep, she would allow it to ignite for a few moments at a time, if only to allow herself to contemplate and appreciate what the Maker had allowed her to have. He had certainly allowed her to be free for some reason - there was no reason she could have stayed out of the Circle as long as she did. Her palms and the pads of her fingers were callused and scarred, marked with years of burning. Even when she could not display it, she felt the presence of the heat in her fists as curled fingertips grazed rough palm creases.   
  
No, she would not let them take this. She would not let them take her.


End file.
